by Susan Lewis
Stella Cornbright was snacking on a packet of crisps as she read through the file in front of her. Her fingers and whiskery upper lip were stained with grease, so were the corners of the pages. Dotted around the fleshy folds of her neck were a dozen corn plasters, covering the spaces from which some sizeable warts had recently been evicted. Funny, the things a person did when they knew they were detaching from the mortal coil. She’d lived most of her life with those warts, but she’d be damned if she was going to take them with her when she went.
In the office outside Tessa waited, hands clasped tightly in front of her, eyes as big as the buttons on her short crushed-velvet dress. It didn’t seem right to sit down without being invited, but there was no-one around, and Stella Cornbright’s door was closed. She wondered if she should just knock, but decided to give it a few more minutes in the hope Melissa, Stella’s secretary, might put in an appearance.
Almost a week had gone by since she’d returned to work, and though she still waited and hoped every day that Allyson would speak to her, Allyson didn’t, nor on the whole did Shelley. Marvin, Shelley’s assistant, seemed to be taking care of Allyson, which, apart from her unofficial training, left Tessa with very little to do. At first she’d been hesitant about asking any of the reporters or researchers if she could go out with them, presuming that they too were going to freeze her out, but after some initial awkwardness, she’d found that most of the team were willing to go on helping her in much the same way as they had before.
‘Oh Tessa, sorry,’ Melissa cried, bounding breathlessly in from the rain. ‘I had to go and pick up Stella’s car from the garage. Does she know you’re here?’
‘No,’ Tessa answered, giving Melissa the once-over as she turned away to hang up her coat. ‘Cool sweater,’ she said. ‘Did you get it round here?’
‘No, in Knightsbridge,’ Melissa answered. ‘Cost a fortune. Hang on, I’ll tell Stella you’re here.’
She was back in a matter of seconds. ‘You can go in now,’ she said.
Melissa watched the door close behind Tessa and fervently wished that she could be a fly on the wall. She’d only met Tessa a couple of times, as she rarely had reason to visit the Soirée studio, but there’d been so much about her in the papers these past few weeks that Melissa, like many others, almost felt she knew her. She couldn’t help wondering what the press would make of Stella Cornbright summoning her to Leicester Square. Probably they’d come to the same conclusion as Melissa, that Tessa was about to find herself out of a job.
Stella Cornbright was staring frankly into Tessa’s face, framed in its unruly thatch of shiny black hair. She’d seen her plenty of times before, had probably considered her pretty if she’d stopped to think about it, but it wasn’t her good looks she was pondering now, it was what she’d done to Allyson and Bob Jaymes’s marriage. Stella could only lament the idiocy in a man that made him behave like a prize buffoon. And publicly too! In her opinion Allyson was probably better shot of him. Still, that was Allyson’s business, and this, for the moment, was hers.
Tricky. At least it would have been had Shelley Bronson not come up with a solution. And as there wasn’t much doubt that Shelley would have discussed the proposal with Allyson before submitting it, it seemed only sensible to go the route Shelley had laid out. Stella wasn’t sure she approved, but she was prepared to give it a go if Allyson and Shelley were.
‘Were you followed here?’ she said. Her voice was loud and sharp, making the question sound more like a reprimand.
‘You mean by the press?’ Tessa asked. ‘I don’t know. I don’t always spot them.’
‘Mm,’ Stella grunted. Then, launching straight into why Tessa was there, she said, ‘So, what are we going to do about this unholy mess you’ve created?’
As it seemed like a rhetorical question Tessa didn’t answer.
‘Well, it’s out of the question for you to continue where you are,’ Stella said. ‘And I’ll be frank with you, if Allyson had personally requested it, I’d be firing you right now. So what have you got to say to that?’
Tessa was momentarily thrown, then, clearing her throat, she said, ‘I understand your feelings, and I feel terrible about what’s happened, but …’
‘I don’t want to hear your excuses,’ Stella barked. ‘If you had any real sensitivity you’d be leaving of your own accord. But I can’t force you, nor will I try. What I’m going to do is act on the reports I’ve had on your work performance, all of which are good. That means, young lady, that instead of being thrown out on your ear, you’re being promoted.’
Tessa’s eyes flew open. ‘Promoted?’ she echoed.
‘To the position of researcher and occasional reporter. Your qualifications show you’re academically suited, and your potential, I’m told, is considerable.’ Her bulging eyes were fixed on Tessa, demanding a response.
‘Thank you,’ was all Tessa managed.
Stella closed the personnel file. ‘OK, you can go,’ she said shortly, and after her beady eyes had escorted Tessa to the door she picked up the phone to call Shelley.
‘So she got her promotion,’ Allyson said, as Shelley finished her call with Stella. ‘Tell me, am I insane? Or just a masochist?’
‘You were right,’ Shelley replied. ‘If we’d got rid of her, like you said, it wasn’t only a lawsuit we’d have had to contend with, it would have been the press too. And this way you really do look like you’re on top of things.’
Allyson sighed. ‘Why do we all have such a fascination with other people’s misery?’ she grumbled. ‘I’ve got to tell you it’s really wearing me down.’ She rubbed her eyes, then looked blankly at the frozen image of her own face that was on the screen in front of them. They were in one of the viewing rooms looking at a prerecorded Night Cap to see if it would work for tomorrow night’s programme, but Allyson was barely paying attention. ‘He called me this morning,’ she said.
‘Oh?’ Shelley said, intrigued. ‘To say what?’
‘I don’t know, I hung up. I expect he wants some more of his things, but I just can’t bear for him to come to the flat, and I can’t bring myself to pack them up either.’ Her eyes closed, as a wave of despair swept through her. It was so hard to accept that he had another address now, slept in another bed and made love to … To a child! Her teeth were suddenly clenched tightly together, as hatred and vengeance began to seethe inside her. She must have been insane to have suggested this promotion. How could she possibly have thought that keeping Tessa on the programme was a way of staying connected to Bob? She hadn’t been in her right mind. Why hadn’t Shelley seen that?
Shelley was looking at her watch. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got to go. I’m having lunch with Mark Reiner, remember?’
Allyson pressed her hands to her face. ‘Oh God, everything’s changing,’ she wailed. ‘When’s the takeover happening, do you know?’
‘There’s no date set yet. But he’s asked to meet me.’
‘Just you, or the other programme heads too?’
‘Just me, today. We’re each getting an individual grilling, it seems.’
Allyson looked her over. ‘Well, you’ll be sure to knock him off his feet in that,’ she predicted.
Shelley smoothed her hands over her cashmere-covered breasts and leather-clad hips. ‘I wasn’t sure trousers were really appropriate,’ she said, ‘but what the hell?’
Allyson smiled, but it was clear her thoughts were elsewhere.
Shelley dropped a kiss on her forehead and quietly left the room.
Going back to her desk Shelley took out a mirror to touch up her make-up. She rarely wore much, with such smooth, olive skin and thick dark lashes, she didn’t need it. Just a subtle shade of lipstick and the finest black line to emphasize the exotic shape of her eyes.
Satisfied with the way she looked, she was on the point of putting the mirror back in its pouch when she noticed the message stuck to her screen. ‘Mark Reiner has to postpone lunch, will call again next week to resche
dule.’
Screwing up the note she tossed it into the bin. Though annoyed, a part of her wanted to laugh. Maybe it was to cover her disappointment, or maybe it was simply relief. Spending so much time with Allyson lately had reminded her just how devastating the breakup of a relationship could be, and she’d charted those waters enough times to know she had no desire ever to go there again. Not that there was any reason to suspect that Mark Reiner would take her there, but she was anxious enough about the meeting to make the wait almost welcome.
‘Promoted?’ Bob echoed.
Tessa nodded. ‘I’ve been dying to tell you. Where were you?’
‘On air,’ Bob reminded her. ‘I don’t understand. Why the hell would they promote you with all that’s going on?’
‘You were probably right, they were afraid I’d sue if they fired me.’
He grunted and went to pour himself a drink.
The kitchen was so small and narrow that they had to squeeze past each other to get from one end to the other. Normally Bob loved to do that, it excited him, pressing up against her and feeling his erection make the space tighter. This evening he was too preoccupied with this astonishing news, and the godawful day he’d just had with Mack, one of the sports editors at LWT. Sure he’d let them down these past few weeks, but what the hell was he supposed to do with the press camped out on his doorstep, and every female hack in the land baying for his blood? Jesus, anyone with any sense would have stayed out of the way with all that going on. And since when was having a couple of jars at lunch time such a major crime? As he recalled, Mack had been in the pub too, and Bob was prepared to bet his next contract that it wasn’t shandy the barman was pulling into Mack’s glass.
They made him sick, the whole damned lot of them. Subs messing about with his scripts, producers giving his matches to other, less experienced, reporters, his agent calling up to tell him that the new deal they had in the offing with Sky had hit a few problems. God knew what they were, let his bloody agent sort it out, it was what he paid him for, wasn’t it?
‘She’s up to something!’ he snapped, suddenly remembering Allyson as he emptied what was left of a bottle of gin into a cheap glass. He’d presumed, at the very least, that Allyson would have Tessa removed from the programme, and sidelined somewhere else in the company. Having her promoted had never even crossed his mind, and because he couldn’t figure out what might be behind it it was pissing him off no end. ‘Haven’t we got any more?’ he growled, looking at the empty bottle.
Tessa smiled benignly. ‘It’s in the cupboard behind you,’ she said. Then, lifting her face, ‘Don’t I get a kiss, Mr Grouch?’
Reaching out, he dragged her roughly towards him and pressed his mouth hard against hers. She snaked her arms round his neck and pushed her groin against his. Since all she was wearing was one of his shirts, he had only to lift her onto the counter, unzip his trousers and enter her.
It was over quickly, and what followed, the tenderness and the giggling, the teasing and the cajoling, went a long way towards working him out of his bad mood. Though she hadn’t long gone off to take a shower before he started feeling sour again, so he opened a fresh bottle of gin and drank a bitter, bolshy toast to Allyson, whose smoothness in promoting Tessa was really getting to him now. He’d tried calling her a couple of times in the last few days, but she was refusing to talk to him, and though he needed to go back and pick up more clothes, he didn’t quite have the nerve just to show up. Probably because he couldn’t face going through another scene like the one they’d had the night he left, so maybe the answer was just to get himself a whole load of new gear and let the past stay where it was.
‘Where are you going?’ he said, when Tessa walked into the room half an hour later. He was sitting in front of the TV now, an empty plate on the floor beside him, his fourth drink of the evening hanging loosely in his hand.
‘Out,’ she answered. She was dressed in black shorts and black tights, a white cable-knit sweater and a long grey raincoat.
‘What do you mean, out?’ he said, not sober enough to get his mind fully wrapped round this surprise. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To meet Julian, down the pub.’
His face darkened. ‘Julian?’ he growled. ‘Who the hell’s Julian?’
‘My brother.’
‘You don’t have a brother. You told me you didn’t have any family.’
‘I don’t. So Julian said I could adopt him.’
‘So what the bloody hell am I supposed to do, while you’re out playing brothers and sisters? And how come you’ve never mentioned him before?’
She shrugged. ‘There was nothing to say.’
He stared at her, momentarily at a loss. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said in the end, certain that would do it.
She laughed and carried on stuffing things in her handbag.
He was so startled that she wasn’t doing what he wanted that he couldn’t think of anything to say.
Tessa was still smiling as she dragged a brush through her short, spiky hair, then she confounded him even further when she said, ‘Do you wish I was Allyson?’
‘What?’ he said.
‘I was just wondering if you wished I was her, so that this baby I’m carrying would be hers. Is that why you’ve stopped talking about it? Because you wish it was hers?’
This was just too much for him, so he drained his glass, and started to get up for a refill. He’d almost made it when he staggered back into the chair.
‘You’ve had too much,’ she told him lightly. Crossing to the window, she pulled back the curtain and peered down at the rain-soaked street below. ‘God, I hope there’s no press out there. I’m sick to death of them. They’re like insects, crawling all over me.’
She turned round and found him standing behind her. Catching her in his arms he held her tightly. ‘Don’t go,’ he pleaded. ‘Stay here with me.’
She smiled softly into his eyes. ‘Do you mean that?’ she said. ‘You want me to stay?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I have to go. I promised Julian.’
‘Who the hell is this Julian?’
‘He works on the programme.’
‘How old is he?’
Her eyes twinkled. ‘About my age, I guess. Not jealous are you?’
He meant to deny it but other words slurred from his lips. ‘Insanely,’ he said. ‘I want you all to myself. You know that.’
Detaching herself gently from his embrace, she hooked her bag over her shoulder and walked to the door. ‘I’ll try not to wake you when I get in,’ she said, and left.
After pouring himself another drink Bob slumped back down in front of the TV and stared at it blindly. His head was spinning and he felt nauseous, which was something Tessa never seemed to feel, given her condition. He hated even to think it, but lately he’d found himself wondering if she’d made it up about the baby. It was why he didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to find out she had, because he didn’t want to deal with the ugly manipulation of it. Not that it would change anything. He’d still be here, because it was where he wanted to be.
He took a large mouthful of gin. Why the hell did she have to go off and see this bloke Julian? What did she need a brother for when she had him? He’d given up his wife, was getting regularly dumped on by the press, and she gets promoted and goes off to celebrate with Julian. It didn’t seem fair. None of it was fair. Those bloody hacks out there hadn’t been married to Allyson. They didn’t have the first idea what she was really like. For all they knew she could be some psychotic ego freak with an abnormal attachment to her man-hating best friend.
His glass hit the floor and broke. He left it where it was, too drunk and worked up to care. Why the hell should he give a damn about Allyson? He had Tessa now. She was all he wanted, everything he needed. This was all working out just fine. He’d find himself a lawyer tomorrow and start talking divorce.
Allyson stared out at the darkness, oblivious to the rain zigzagging dow
n the windscreen. Tessa was almost out of sight now, meaning he was up there alone. A few minutes ago she’d seen them at the window. She’d sat here, in the chill space of her car, watching her husband with his arms around the girl she’d taken so warmly and trustingly into their lives.
She tensed with the quick burn of pain in her heart.
It wasn’t getting any better. It was only getting worse. Sometimes the ache of missing him was so great it felt as though it was swallowing her alive. Everywhere she looked she saw him, everything she felt was about him. She just couldn’t make herself accept that he was no longer a part of her life, maybe because without him it didn’t feel as though there was a life. There was only this terrible wrenching inside, and a void that only got wider.
She’d lost weight, a fact several columnists had pointed out to the nation, and she often looked tired, almost to the point of being haggard. But she was a professional, she still carried on with the show. She just wished the camera would stop frightening her so much. It never used to, but now, when she sat there at the cocktail bar and the lens was focused upon her, strange things started to happen inside her head. It was as though her face was contorting, stretching up to the camera, dragging her into a science-fiction journey that delivered her to millions of TV screens, where the world, like vultures, could feast on every part of her misery.
She wasn’t really going insane. Shelley assured her of that. It was normal to go off the rails a little and be so afraid when your entire life was being smashed apart as though it was worthless. She often wondered how women with children coped. It had to be so much harder for them. Whoever they were she wanted to embrace them and try to comfort them, but children or no children, there was no comfort for this.